Dreamer
by Sefilin
Summary: Relena looks back on her life and sees just how strong dreams can be.


========================================  
  
Dreamer  
A Gundam Wing Fic  
By Sefilin  
  
========================================  
  
Disclaimers: Shin Kidousenki Gundam Wing copyright Sunrise,   
Bandai, Sotsu Agency  
  
The first fic I've ever written in first person... it's a   
rambling monologue of Relena and doesn't follow any particular pattern.  
  
==========  
  
I admit, now that I look back on those events from a   
distance of years, that I was very strange. But, at the time,   
everything seemed perfectly natural, because I was a dreamer   
and it never occurred to me that people looked at the world   
differently than I did.  
  
I think the first clue I had was Heero glaring at me from   
those dark blue eyes of his, those eyes I still love dearly. I   
mistook the shock that ran through me for something other than   
the clash of the dream I lived in and the real world and my   
life changed. But I can't regret it; I don't regret it, for it   
bought me the love of my life.  
  
I even remember, just minutes before meeting Heero for   
the first time, saying something about if I lived in a movie I   
would run away. It strikes me as ironic now, that such a   
sentiment guided me throughout much of the next months as war   
erupted and I found myself trapped in the middle of it. And,   
even more ironic, was that, in the end, it was that sentiment   
that carried me through to the end of the war and the peace   
that followed.  
  
Falling in love with Heero was not something that   
happened at first sight, despite what Duo tells everyone. I   
_thought_ it was love, that's true enough; I even thought I'd   
found my soul mate. But it wasn't that. He was my hero, the   
little Prince fallen from the sky to rescue me from the life I   
lived that stifled me daily.   
  
The daughter of Vice-foreign Minister Darlian was not an   
easy thing to be. I was expected to be perfect, and gave a   
good impression of it, according to my classmates of the time.   
I even believed I was happy living such a structured life of   
the right school, the right parties, the right friends, which   
was all leading up to a life that mirrored my foster-mother's.   
My foster-father was grooming me to be the Princess he knew I   
was, refusing to acknowledge that Sank was gone.  
  
So I lived the life, walked the walk and talked the talk,   
as Duo might, and does, say. But half the time I just wasn't   
there.   
  
I had become a prolific reader at a very young age, so my   
mother tells me, and it was a habit that continued on into my   
teenage years. But it was also more than a habit; it was an   
escape. Only through books could I find a way out from where I   
was without breaking my father's heart. I would often drift   
off into the world's within the pages of those books, whether   
the book was in front of me or not, and I would be a heroine,   
admired for her great deeds rather than her social position.  
  
That's why I followed Lady Une into that party after she   
killed my Father; I was going to be a heroine for ridding the   
world of such a cold-blooded monster.   
  
But in the end, I couldn't do it. My father, the man I   
was going to avenge, appeared before me and shook his head   
sadly. By his side stood my other father, the one I was only   
related to by blood, and he too was shaking his head.   
  
I had spent some of the time between my father's death   
and my arrival at the party, reading about the King of Sank,   
curious as to my origins. My mother helped a lot with that,   
once I had finally accepted the shock of her not being my birth   
mother, talking to me about what she remembered and giving me   
photos and letters to read. She'd been a good friend of my   
real mother's apparently, and was the real reason why my father   
had taken me in.  
  
Both my mother's were there too, when I went to meet Lady   
Une, and they smiled at me with such compassion when I chose to   
destroy the rose instead of the woman.   
  
As I ran from the troops Lady Une sent out after me, I   
smiled to myself, knowing I had their approval. And, really,   
it was better that way, with Une still alive but that rose, the   
evidence that there was someone who cared for her even after   
what she had done, that rose was gone. I think it satisfied   
the lingering desire for vengeance in a way that death wouldn't   
have. Nothing could bring him back to me after all.  
  
But, even though he was gone, I had someone else.  
  
Heero.  
  
Everything always came back to Heero, the blue-eyed   
terrorist, though to my eyes he was always a freedom fighter,   
noble and just, like the French Resistance during the Second   
World War so many centuries ago. And I was going to be the   
woman who he came back to, that he fought for, the same way I'd   
read in an ancient book I'd found in a small dusty shop so long   
ago.  
  
It was somewhat conceited of me, I realise that now, but   
I was infatuated with this boy and it didn't occur to me that   
maybe he wasn't looking for someone to fight for, or even that   
he'd already found someone. He had of course, the little girl   
and her dog that he told me of so many years later on a warm   
summers day when our young daughter passed him a small yellow   
flower she had found beside the stream on our estate.   
  
He cried that day, the first and last time I've ever seen   
him do so. I sent little Heiwa, her name meaning peace in the   
language of her father, away and held him close for a long   
time. I think that was the first time I was truly happy,   
living in reality and not a dream. But Heero always had that   
effect on me, giving me the strength to live in the real world,   
and then making me truly happy to be there.  
  
But I digress. I was speaking of how Heero was my hero   
and I would, in turn, be his saviour. That's how our   
relationship started, with me refusing to go away, to give him   
space. And I'm glad of it, no matter how much it might have   
annoyed him and his friends at the time. It still scares me,   
how prone he was to throwing his life away.  
  
The first time he'd tried to self-destruct, I hadn't   
understood what was going on. I had no idea why he had tapped   
that button on his chest and gone flying backwards after the   
tiny explosion.   
  
The second time, I knew what he was doing, though I   
wasn't there in person. He was responding to OZ's demand for   
the surrender of the Gundams, not willing to allow them to   
destroy the colonies, but not willing to let them have the   
Gundams either. So he'd followed the short order Dr J sent   
him. And I thought him so much more noble because of it, being   
willing to give up his life for the greater good like that.  
  
What I didn't know was that underneath everything lurked   
the actual desire to die, to be free of his life, the way I had   
wanted to be free of mine, before it became closer to what I   
wanted to be. After all, doesn't every girl dream of being a   
Princess?  
  
But Heero, he didn't have the ability to dream, it was   
something he'd trained himself out of because it hurt too much,   
and so he couldn't escape from real life except through death.   
I'd been terrified when Duo had explained that to me on one of   
his frequent visits with Hirde and had spent the next week   
scared that he would disappear on me. He must have wondered   
what was happening when I'd curl up to him each night and hold   
onto him tightly.  
  
But, it's not possible to live in constant fear like that   
without becoming emotionally and spiritually exhausted. I   
decided I was going to trust him, after all it was ten years   
since then and he seemed happy enough that I didn't really have   
to worry about suicide.  
  
I think the fear was because of the past. The few months   
after he self-destructed his Gundam, when I heard nothing of   
him, were amongst the longest of my life as I swung between   
despair and rage, hoping he was alive. I'd believed, previous   
to that, that the two of us were bound in some cosmic way and   
that I would know, somehow, if anything happened to him.  
  
But of course, it didn't happen like that. The only way   
I knew something _had_ happened was because of the news, and I   
couldn't rely on it to tell me everything about him.  
  
That was what led me to ask him to inform me if he was   
going to leave while he was at the School for Peace that I had   
started in Sank. I was thoroughly angry with him when I found   
out he hadn't, even after saying he would, but I let it go. He   
was just trying to protect me.  
  
He still tries, although at least I've managed to train   
him to tell me if he's going to be doing something dangerous.  
  
He tells me, though, that it should be him worried about   
me going around doing crazy things. He remembers some things   
too well for my liking.  
  
Every time Duo visits he brings up our first meeting when   
I placed myself between the two of them and he reminds me that   
if Duo had been anyone else, he may have fired.   
  
Then he goes on to that time in the Arctic when I yelled   
at him and Zechs from the plane, and I _will_ admit that it's   
something I don't think I'd ever do again. Why I thought that   
their being able to see me, as well as hear me, would change   
anything. I just remember wanting to yell at the two of them   
for being stupid, and it's hard to yell at people properly when   
you're not face to face, or face to Gundam as the case may be.  
  
I then go on to tease him about all the times _he_ was   
reckless, to which he _always_ replies 'but I was trained', as   
if that made it better.  
  
But those times are over now, though they make a   
wonderful series of memories to reminisce and laugh over. To   
dream of.  
  
Ah, yes, dreams...  
  
Even now, I dream a lot, enough for both my husband and   
myself, in any case, which is good, as he still doesn't have   
the knack of it.   
  
I suppose I could stop dreaming, if I chose to. It   
wouldn't be that hard, with what real life has become, though I   
think Heero may complain, dreams being marvellous for more than   
one reason. But I don't want to, dreams are what bought this   
world to where it is, and much of it is because of the strength   
of my own dreams.  
  
It may seem that I boast when I say that, but it is true.   
  
Peace figured so strongly in my dreams after my failure   
as a warrior-heroine and became so intertwined with real life   
that its strength was remarked on by so many. It inspired them   
to dream as strongly.   
  
In the end, that's all it was, though - a dream. Yet it   
spread far enough that the Romefeller Foundation was threatened   
and tried to supersede it by taking over the epicentre of that   
dream - myself. But even then the dream didn't die and began   
to corrupt the Foundation from within. I had reports of the   
dissention between those who supported me and those who didn't   
and how could I respond but grow even stronger in response to   
the encouragement?  
  
The one thing I find most strange about my dreams though,   
is that I took them all so seriously. I was never the most   
gregarious and easy going of people, but dreams were meant to   
be fun. It is a pity that it's taken me so long to be able to   
enjoy them, so much hard work on Hirde and Duo's part as they   
dragged us with them on holidays and forced us into laughter,   
even if it was at their expense.   
  
They did the same for the others, of course, though   
Quatre had enough laughter to start the process with himself   
and Trowa and Wufei had Sally and the Preventers. No, it was   
just the two of us, Heero and I, that had the most trouble and   
it would have taken much longer to reach this stage had it not   
been for our two best friends. We owe them a lot more than we   
can ever repay.  
  
So, now my life is full of laughter and dreams... and   
love.  
  
It took Heero and I a long time to end up together, but   
after I had gotten over my infatuation I refused to give up on   
him. Even if he ended up with someone else, I was going to   
make him live, no matter how much I wanted him to live for and   
be with me.  
  
He came around, eventually, and I found out he'd never   
had any thoughts of being with anyone else, he was just   
adjusting to a new version of real life.   
  
He still is, and so am I each time I adjust my dreams to   
fill this life.  
  
==Owari==  
  
http://www.geocities.com/sefilin/  
sefilin@yahoo.com  



End file.
